Saturday, October 29, 2011

BREAKING: Attack In Kabul Story Has CHANGED - Now 5 ISAF Troops Are Now Reported Killed, NOT 13 American Troops


I don't know how in the hell the wrong info got out to all of the media networks earlier today but I apologize for my story earlier that 13 American troops were killed when their Rhino Runner was car bombed. It appears that there are 8 ISAF civilians killed that might be American - I'm not sure who those personnel would be. At the same time, it looks like 4 of the dead troops are American and 1 is Canadian. Hopefully this will all get sorted out.

Please see the new revised report below from The Long War Journal.


The Taliban have claimed credit for a suicide attack in Kabul today that killed five ISAF soldiers, eight ISAF civilian employees, three Afghan civilians, and a policeman. Three more Coalition soldiers were killed in the south, while the Taliban also deployed a female suicide bomber against Afghan intelligence officials in the eastern province of Kunar.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a Rhino Runner transporting NATO troops to the Kabul Military Training Center Kabul, a US military official told The Long War Journal. The Rhino is an up-armored bus that is used to transport large numbers of troops around the capital.

An initial International Security Assistance Force stated that 13 ISAF troops were killed in the attack, but the report was later updated to specify that five ISAF troops and eight ISAF civilian employees died in the attack. The Associated Press reported that all of the ISAF dead were Americans except for one Canadian soldier.

Afghan Interior Ministry Spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter that "three civilians and a police officer were killed in Kabul." According to The New York Times, two of the Afghan civilians killed were students passing by. Eight Afghans were wounded in the attack, two of them children.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that a suicide bomber named Abdul Rehman Hazarbos carried out the attack.


Either way this is a horrible attack on NATO forces in Kabul - hopefully, we can get more details later to share.



Suicide bomber kills 17 in Kabul, including 5 ISAF troops



The Taliban have claimed credit for a suicide attack in Kabul today that killed five ISAF soldiers, eight ISAF civilian employees, three Afghan civilians, and a policeman. Three more Coalition soldiers were killed in the south, while the Taliban also deployed a female suicide bomber against Afghan intelligence officials in the eastern province of Kunar.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a Rhino Runner transporting NATO troops to the Kabul Military Training Center Kabul, a US military official told The Long War Journal. The Rhino is an up-armored bus that is used to transport large numbers of troops around the capital.

An initial International Security Assistance Force stated that 13 ISAF troops were killed in the attack, but the report was later updated to specify that five ISAF troops and eight ISAF civilian employees died in the attack. The Associated Press reported that all of the ISAF dead were Americans except for one Canadian soldier.

Afghan Interior Ministry Spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter that "three civilians and a police officer were killed in Kabul." According to The New York Times, two of the Afghan civilians killed were students passing by. Eight Afghans were wounded in the attack, two of them children.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that a suicide bomber named Abdul Rehman Hazarbos carried out the attack.

"A suicide car bomb attack was carried out on a bus of foreign forces in the Dar-ul-Aman area of Kabul," Mujahid said in a text message.

A US military officer told The Long War Journal that the attack was well planned to maximize Coalition casualties. The blast was large enough to flip the Rhino.

"The Taliban first had to build a bomb big enough to penetrate the Rhino's armor, and then they had to position the suicide bomber to execute the attack," the official said. "Clearly they have been observing our movements and timed this attack."

The attack in Kabul was likely carried out by what US military officials have referred to as the Kabul Attack Network, which is made up of fighters from the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, and cooperates with terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda. Top Afghan intelligence officials have linked the Kabul Attack Network to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate as well. The network's tentacles extend outward from Kabul into the surrounding provinces of Logar, Wardak, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Ghazni, and Zabul, a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.

The Taliban and allied groups have averaged one major attack per month in Kabul since the beginning of the year [see LWJ report, Taliban launch complex attack on US embassy in Kabul, for a list of the attacks]. The last major attack took place on Sept. 13, when a suicide assault team took control of a building near ISAF headquarters and the US Embassy and opened fire. At the same time, several suicide attacks took place near police stations elsewhere in the city. The Sept. 13 attack outraged US officials and led to pointed criticism over Pakistan's role in supporting the Taliban and the Haqqani Network [see LWJ report, Admiral Mullen: Pakistani ISI sponsoring Haqqani attacks].

Today's suicide attack in Kabul takes place as the US government is seeking to conduct negotiations with the Taliban's Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network, a powerful Taliban subgroup that is strong in the Afghan east and has been spreading into the south and north.

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